Picture Window

The girl’s partner goes outside with their child. She asks for the window cleaner and the girl looks askance. The window cleaner is not going to work in this cold, she says. She is ignored, and she wants to say, like usual, but maybe that is too hard. Maybe it isn’t. But she is ignored. She puts the cleaner on the porch, paper towels. She sits down on the couch and watches the blue fluid splash onto the window, she watches her partner try to clean the window, and she watches it freezes across the pane. Streaks of white with each swipe. Usually this might make the girl smirk: she was right. Instead it makes her unbearably sad and angry. “It looks worse!” she calls out. She points hard at the streaks, but can’t see through them. “It’s worse! It’s worse!” she calls. She leaves the room. She can’t bear to look at the dirty icy streaks cutting across the window.